Desire is (not) the root cause of all sufferings...

This was a topic we were debating on, at office...

I know that ur first reaction to this would be ' pretty philosophical ha!'..but no, i ain't givin any philosophy here....am just gonna point out the stark reality, and tell u why I don't think that desire i the root cause of all suffering..my perspective would be something on the lines of 'Necessity is the mother of invention'. Or better put this way 'Desire is the road to success'.

Now most of you would say, desire = want, but desire is not equal to need...But i can so surely tell you , that today, its difficult to draw a line between needs and wants..we're almost clubbing our wants with our needs and labeling them as needs...
If you totally disagree with me, just look around you..just look at yourself..Why do you need a mobile phone? Can't you make do with the good ol telephone.. Do you need to have a laptop with you at all times??? If you say yes, I'd ask, weren't we able to live life with a desktop a few years ago? I think we did.. Do you need that car or mobike? There's public transport available..why the car/bike for personal use then???
For all these questions, I know most of you would have an answer...and to sum em all in one word, it would be 'convenience'..So the bottom line is we all yearn and earn for comfort and convenience...for our 'wants', which are no distinct than our 'needs'.

From time immemorial man has always been struggling to survive in hostile conditions....From finding shelter against the scorching sun and the pouring rain, to hunting or gathering food...from finding cures for ailments to preserving food for later use...from curing diseases to finding preventive methods for other ghastly ailments...and last but not the least, the quest for comfort and ease in life...all these things have sparked man's interest and led him to find solutions to the multitude of problems...and we haven't stopped there.. Man still works for his food, shelter and spends money on the doctor..but he hasn't stopped there...there's still ample research being done, lotsa money being spent on making lifestyle simpler and convenient...just count the number gadgets occupying shelf and carpet space in your house and you know just what i mean... Man would still work gratifying his never ending needs...And we should think it is good...else today we wouldn't be flashing mobiles and working on the go on our laptops....

So simply put, the desire to solve daily problems, the desire to keep diseases at bay, the desire to make food available(without going food gathering or hunting), the desire to protect you from the rain or storm, all of these have only helped man progress and reach the stage we are at...and it doesn't end here..man still works on improving the current situation....

So isn't it a good thing that the desire to improve conditions led man to improvise his life step by step..Do you still think desire was the root cause of suffering.. i for one would strongly be to disagree..if not for desire, today we'd still be like our ancestors'...truly at the mercy of nature's elements..worst case, maybe we would be an extinct species by now....or maybe keeping the worst case aside, if not for our desires, needs if you will, we'd never be seeing so much progress..so much improvements...of course, I wouldn't disagree, that with our life changed so much, we still have concerns/problems to deal with..but that's life..there's always goin to be problems we have to deal with..

Even in our personal lives, our desires, ambitions drive us to work hard and achieve what we want to...The desire to get good grades makes you study..if you want to get that job, you need to have done the groundwork...you want to get a good increment, work hard or work smart..simply put..our desires provide the much need impetus...take the desire out and without it, there's not much determination to do anything great, or to achieve anything extraordinary...

Though I'm not here to justify why there is suffering, i can only say that humans suffer when they don't get what they want or when they see the unwanted happening...
But for sure desire cannot be blamed to be the root cause of suffering!